Announcing "Beyond The Wail" Including The Short Story "The "Grim" Reaper," By L.K. McIntosh

Xchyler Publishing has released Beyond The Wail, an anthology including 12 grave stories of love and loss. And this post is to spotlight one of those stories and its author.

The story is, 

The "Grim" Reaper,

and the author is,

L. K. McIntosh.

Here's a little background on the author:

L.K. McIntosh has been making up stories about the people around her since she learned how to talk. She eventually discovered cultural anthropology, a fantastic and often macabre world of research rabbit holes and bare bones tales just begging to be fleshed out. She is irrationally terrified of sharks, which makes perfect sense, considering she has always lived in a landlocked state, and she is a proud supporter of the Oxford comma. She is currently working on two speculative fiction novels and several short stories. She physically lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, but tends to live life vicariously thanks to the Internet, books, television, and a vast array of interesting people.

As far as the story goes, the main character of The "Grim" Reaper is just who you'd think he is, the ol' soul collector himself. I've always found Mr. Reaper to be a fascinating character. Does this entity, who makes the decision of when our time is up, have a soul of his own? And what's going through his mind when he's not making those decisions.

McIntosh gives us a story about one who carries this burden. What I enjoyed most about this story is the Grim Reaper is not the only fantastical character. There's magic, witches, teleportation and other mystical elements crammed into this short story. We find out some of the thoughts someone who has lived for millennia is thinking.

I couldn't help hoping that this cannot be all to the story. I have to believe there's a whole novel out there either written or living in the mind of the author just waiting to be let loose. There's just too much of a well-established world to play with and explore for this to be all there is. I would like to know more about Mr. Reaper and how this story continues.

I have not read the rest of the stories in this anthology, but I want to. You can order it now through Amazon by following the link: HERE. I consider some of the authors in this collection friends and I always love reading stories written by friends and people I know. If the one story I read is an indication of the rest of the book, it's going to be a good one.